


Scritch-Scratch

by CaptainSchmoe



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff, Ice Cream, Inappropriate Jokes, M/M, MARK GETS SHORT, Werewolves, attempted medical explanation of Mark’s lycanthropy, cheek-licking, just thought I’d warn you guys of this apparent curse, mentions of furries, nevertheless this is the fic that caused the eponymous beast, photophobia, short jokes, supposedly, the Septiplier isn’t very prominent at all, this is only barely rated T it’s mostly G tbh, to C O N S U M E my flesh and soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 02:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15939809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSchmoe/pseuds/CaptainSchmoe
Summary: Jack’s perfectly willing to hang out with Mark during the night if it means the poor photophobic boy doesn’t have to layer up in the middle of summer. Except it’s not actually photophobia, Mark’s just a (really weird) werewolf.





	Scritch-Scratch

**Author's Note:**

> This is fucking cheesy. I feel like I’m 14.

Jack always felt bad convincing Mark to come outside during the dead heat of summer. Yet sometimes, the crazy bastard himself offered to tag along. Like today. Today he could _kind of_ cool off with a large cup of soft serve (cookie dough, Mark chose). That was about it. No pool or even a sprinkler for him.

As per usual, Mark had on a gray hooded jacket with the hood up and tied tightly shut, a visor, sunglasses, gloves, long pants, and tennis shoes. Every inch of skin was shielded from the light. Photophobia, he said, or a “sun allergy”, in layman’s terms. Not that Jack would make ever make fun of it - it wasn’t Mark’s choice to be born this way - but how stupid was that? For a body to be allergic to the _sun_?

Still...

“I’ll never understand how you can wear like twenty layers of clothes in the middle of summer and not die.”

“I got used to it.“ Liquid ice cream dribbled off his spoon and onto his jacket. “Ah, shoot.” He lifted up the fabric and gave it a quick lick.

“I’d turn into that ice cream.”

“...You say right as I’m licking you.”

“Sure. I’d be fine with that.”

Even through the sunglasses, Jack could sense the eyeroll, and both laughed.

“I’m gonna go get a straw.” The metal chair let out a commanding screech as Mark scraped it against the cement. “It’s literally milk at this point.”

“So you’re saying you’d rather suck me.”

Mark playfully shoved him by the shoulder. “Shut up.”

The attempt at humor didn’t stop Jack from worrying about some of the weird looks Mark got from people as he passed by. How many hundreds of people he probably had to explain his condition to day in and day out. Why couldn’t they just assume he had a decent reason for dressing like an Antarctic scientist in the middle of a California June, instead of assuming he was some sort of daredevil dumbass risking heatstroke for a moment in the limelight? Mark claimed he didn’t care what people thought, that Jack fretted over it more than he himself did. But he always wondered... Mark did have a tendency to brush off other people worrying about him.

Mark returned to their table, two straws in hand. “Here you go,” he said, handing one to Jack. “Got one for you, too. Start sucking.”

“Thanks.” Mint chocolate chip was almost as good liquid as solid. Almost.

He still worried. Both of them were free to spend nights out on the town. Why did Mark insist on being active during the day? Sure, most businesses were closed; of course if Mark needed to do something like go to the bank, he’d have to face the sun. But, like... Just hanging out with Jack?

Lowkey, part of it was that he wanted to see Mark in normal clothes, free and open, without all this nonsense covering him up. Desperately, even. It was eating him up inside, just wanting to see some emotion on Mark’s face for once. It would make Jack so, so happy.

“You know, Mark...” he began, softly, to convey his seriousness.

Mark stopped drinking his cookie dough soup to listen.

“You don’t have to hang out with me during the day. I’m perfectly willing to-”

“No, really.” Mark waved his hand towards Jack’s face. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Jack pressed on. “I can’t stop. Like, I can pretend not to, but I can’t make the feelings go away.”

Mark opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself, sighing. His lips pressed together, seemingly pondering the offer.

“Something wrong?” Jack asked.

“...It’s just...” It was nearly impossible to gauge Mark’s feelings with his eyes covered up. “Okay. I think I trust you.”

“Trust me?” Was there something Mark wasn’t telling him?

“Come on over to my house after sundown.”

“...Oh my god, you’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

“Nope. Not a vampire.” Mark took another slurp of his ice cream. “But you’re sort of in the right ballpark.”

Jack squinted. The hell did that mean?

 

* * *

 

Lights glowed behind the curtains in several of the windows downstairs, and a few upstairs as well. Jack caught a glimpse of Mark’s shadow passing by in what he remembered was the kitchen.

At the door, before he could even knock, he heard Mark yell _“Coming!”_ And a mere three seconds after, the door swung open. For the first time in a long time, Jack finally saw Mark as he was: a normal human, with normal human skin on his normal human arms and legs and face now exposed by his normal human T-shirt and boxer shorts.

It was a breath of fresh air. Relieving. Like a barrier had been torn down.

“I saw you coming up the driveway,” Mark said.

“I saw you walking through the kitchen.”

“You creeper.”

Jack laughed a little. “Wasn’t like I was _trying_ to creep on you.” The laughter faded as he remembered why he was here. “So, you said you were gonna show me that you were or were not a vampire?”

“I am not a vampire,” Mark said with a suspicious firmness. Yet he was ready to prove it, exiting his home and walking out to the middle of his lawn, bathing in the glow of the quarter moon above, even tilting his head back and outstretching his arms to the sides, like he was performing a villainous ritual.

It came on quickly enough for Jack to notice the changes. The hair on Mark’s arms, legs, and face grew thicker. His ears altered their shape, acquiring sharp points at the tips. His stature changed; his body seemed to compress itself and get smaller. Not a whole lot smaller, but Jack definitely had to be a good few inches above him now.

“Are you telling me you’re a fucking _werewolf_?”

“Ha!” Mark’s open mouth revealed sharp canines. “I wish I was a real werewolf.”

“I don’t know, the extra hair and the pointed ears and the teeth look pretty wolfy to me.”

“I’m not a werewolf. I’m a were-dog.”

“... _That’s_ new.”

“A lot of things about me and my werewolf-ness are probably new to you.”

Jack was super-curious. “Like what?”

“See how it’s only a part moon up there instead of a full one?” Mark pointed to the quarter moon. “Different phases allow different levels of transformation, with a full moon making me a full-blown wolf - or dog, in this case. Whereas what we have now just makes me look like a furry.” He rubbed his arms. “And you know how I shield myself from the sun?”

“I‘m guessing it’s not actually a sun allergy?”

“I’m really shielding myself from the moon. Any time the moon is visible and casting down light on me, even during the day, I can transform. The easiest way for me to pretend I’m not a were-dog is to just shield myself all the time and tell people it’s photophobia.”

That... was kind of sad, actually. While Jack understood Mark’s reasoning for hiding this fact about himself, it tasted depressingly bitter, that Mark felt he had to go to such extreme lengths to preserve his dignity in public.

But there was still something Jack wanted to know.

“So how come you’re a were-dog instead of a werewolf?”

“Teenage stupidity.”

That... wasn’t an answer he expected. “Okay, what _kind_ of teenage stupidity?”

 _Sigh. “_ All right.”

Jack sensed incoming Speechbach noises.

“I don’t really understand all the science behind it...”

Definitely incoming Speechbach.

“So basically, even if you have the right genes, to actually become a werewolf, you have to get bitten. But the way it works is that... Really, it’s their saliva, I guess? Like, it comes into contact with your blood, and that combined with the bite wound sort of activates something in your cells? I don’t know how it works.”

Jack could already start piecing together where this story was going. “So you let someone’s dog bite you instead? And that ‘counted’, or something?”

“Yeah- Well, we wanted to see what would happen, right? We tried to get my friend’s little- little Pomeranian dog to bite me, but she’s a complete wuss, like, all she’d do is sniff and happily pant and wonder why we were antagonizing her. So one of the guys, like, got his teeth as dry as he possibly could, bit me, and then put peanut butter around it and let her lick it. And, yeah, that ‘counted’, I guess.”

Seemed like at every stage of his life, Mark was a fucking idiot.

“So... why did you think that was a good idea?”

“We thought it’d be funny. And it _was_ funny, until I learned it was gonna be permanent. My dad and grandma got pretty, uh...” He laughed. “Not _mad_ -”

“Just disappointed?” Jack finished.

“Just...” He mock-sighed. “‘Well, son, look on the bright side: at least you won’t accidentally hurt anyone that way.’”

“Aww.” That was sweet of h-

“You’ll just get mauled by other packs without us protecting you.”

Okay, never mind.

Mark sighed again, wandering the yard, sometimes coming closer to Jack and making the new height difference more apparent. Man, that was weird. “Really, I don’t have a problem with being this tiny were-dog, but... it’s other people reacting to it that I worry about.”

“Right.”

“Like you either have normal people who freak out that I’m a were-anything, then you have fellow were-beasts who might take advantage of my helplessness while transformed.”

“Kinda want to see what you look like at different stages of transformation.”

“You just want to see me be as short as is often advertised.”

“That too. Well, you’re short right now.” Jack reached out his arm to pat Mark’s head for emphasis.

“I know, no need to remind me.”

Since he was part dog now, Jack got an idea...

_Scritch-scratch-scritch-scratch._

“Hey. Who said you could pet me?”

Still scratching, Jack retorted, “You’re not exactly objecting.” Indeed, whether consciously or not, Mark had started to nuzzle into Jack’s hand.

“I know,” he fake-whined, “but it’s _embarrassing_ , there’s _people_ out here.”

“But if you go inside, then you lose the hair, and I’ll just be petting an ordinary grown man.”

“But you’ll pet a grown man if he’s a short furry?”

“Sure.” Jack smiled. “I’m fine with that.”

Mark was suddenly embolded with a bit of mischief sparkling in his eyes. He scanned their surroundings, probably checking for people, and deeming the coast clear, he raised himself up onto his toes and gave Jack a sloppy puppy lick right on his cheek.

“Hey, what the fuck!?” Jack rubbed the wet spot with his sleeve. “Ew! What was that for?”

“Hey,” Mark said with a cheeky grin, “you said earlier today you’d be fine with me licking you.”

“I-“ His memory whisked him back to the ice cream bench. Dammit. He _did_ say that, didn’t he?

“...Heheh.” _Lick._ “I don’t gotta worry about you being mean to me while I’m a sweet little puppo, do I?”

The words and the sharped-toothy grin sent a burst of butterflies through Jack’s stomach, and a heat wave soaring to his face. No, of course he didn’t have to worry about that. He didn’t have to worry about Jack being genuinely mean to him ever. Not when he was like this. Not when he was finally in his natural state, free and open, with no barrier between them. Everything Jack had so desperately wanted to see.


End file.
